“I’m a Hypocrite”

by J. Money on Monday, February 24, 2014

I was having an email exchange with a blog reader here, and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share this with you guys… Proof that even PROFESSIONALS have a hard time doing the “right” financial stuff! Even though they know it’s important!!

There’s a big difference between knowing and DOING, and this conversation is a perfect example of that. I already told y’all of one of my friends who trains employees on the benefits of 401k plans, yet doesn’t invest a drop himself (!!!), and our friend today is in a similar boat… and also kind enough to allow me to share this with everyone today, so for that she gets two gold stars :)

Here’s her dilemma:

I am embarrassed to say that I am a financial adviser/registered rep. that hasn’t put money in my 401k in the last 2 years, but tell my clients to save everyday!

Problem 1 – no budget. Where does the money go?? BTW, did I mention that my husband and I have 5 kids and 4 of them are 6 and under?? Anyways, my husband stays at home with the kids because when he did work most if not all went to daycare and the cost of gas/commuting.

So, pay down debt (not including mortgage, that will come later ) and contribute the 6% to my 401k so I can get the free 3% from my employer? When I sit here typing it, it all seems SO clear… but its not. Started downsizing, sold our 4K sq ft house last year and bought one 1/2 the size and 1/2 the price. Still don’t know where the $$ goes!

I just struggle with the TIME issue as far as investments go and KNOW that I need to invest, although the market is at record sky highs! At least putting my 6% would help with taxes and give me the free dough from my ER but mostly I wouldn’t feel like such a freakin’ hypocrite!!!!!!!

I cant stand paying the interest on my debts though. Is there a happy medium?

I want to get y’all’s opinion here after, but here’s what I shot back to her:

Awwww, well at least you’re ready to start working on it all now! And you’ve downsized your home – that’s good! Even though yes – it is pretty funny to hear from a financial adviser/rep ;)

But yes! Start contributing to your 401k!! At least what your company matches (that’s FREE money) and then anything on top of that is gravy. And you really only need to figure out “the game plan” there as far as what to invest in the beginning. Most 401k plans have advisers you can ask (talk with HR) and they’ll ask you questions to determine how comfortable you are with risk and what your end goals are. Then they’ll recommend which to invest in and at what %.

You set it up once and then let it ride!

(They’ll advise to check in every year or so to make sure it’s still aligned with your goals and what not, but you get the point. And plus, you already know all this stuff anyways ;)).

The beauty is that it’s all automated too so you don’t have to do a thing once you get it set up (not to mention the taxes you save and how BIG it adds up after every paycheck, as you also know already). It really is one of my favorite programs ever, and it sucks I can’t contribute myself now that I’m self-employed…

So yes – def. start there and just get the system going. That’ll be the easiest and fastest thing you can do right away.

As for debts, I’d literally call every single place you owe and just ask them to lower the interest rate by a few points. If they say no, ask to speak with a manager and 50% of the time they’ll say yes (for credit cards, at least). Just let them know you’re considering moving to other cards because it’s too high but you prefer to stay with them and pay it off over time, and usually that does the trick. This is the fastest way to save on that front, and again only takes 1-time actions.

As for getting money on the right track overall, try challenges #1 and #2 on this post of mine, and then for savings try #3 or #5 –> 5 Money Saving Challenges to Try

Either of those challenges would give you amazing results, especially the first two. It’s just a matter of getting into the habit and then you’ve got your structure built and can relax knowing you’re on the right track :)

Easier to say than do, of course, but give it a shot! What’s the worst that can happen? It’s really about taking action and moving the ball forward once and for all. You already know what you need to do, you just gotta pull the trigger. Your future self is depending on you! :)

Dear readers, what say you? What helps to give you a kick in the pants and/or stay motivated? What’s something you wish you could have gone back in time and done earlier if you had the brains you do now?

Spill it below and let’s help this chica out… She likes my blog, but I want her to LOVE it ;)

—–Picture expertly crafted by J. Money… He has no idea how he’ll be able to spend it now.

UPDATE:Our emailer, Michelle, chimed into the comments below. Posting it up here too so it’s not lost… Check out that 2nd sentence – wow!

I am very humbled by all of your responses. I have been in my profession for over 15 years and currently have 80 million in assets under management. My clients are very important to me and I strive to do my due diligence going above and beyond daily. I now realize, although if I dig deep I already knew all of this, that my time management skills coupled with my lack of a budget has resulted in this snowball effect.

Rather than answer each comment with a reply, I decided to try and sum it all up in one comment.

We have 2 vans, one payment. ( both bought used )

We do not qualify for anything low income but have when we were younger and think those programs are great!!

We are not opposed to daycare, the issue is that the daycare cost more than what my husband brought home. Also, it makes it possible for me to travel when need be with one parent home.

My husband is now an independent distributor from home and also has the kids involved :)

It is not a challenge to sell a service that I know is right, btw my retention rate for 2013 was 93%. I do have a 401(k) and started it 12 years ago as well as 529 plans for my children and other investments. I am able to speak with a clear conscience about these things.

Unfortunately, I do not have any emerging markets funds available in my fund line up for my 401(k) but could buy a retail fund.

Thanks for all of your feedback. I appreciate ALL of your responses and ideas/suggestions.

Do one thing at a time and let things settle before tackling another. Downsizing your home was an awesome start. Now you need to hit the 401k. Get the match then when you’ve adjusted to the smaller paycheck figure out which debt you want to pay off and set a goal for that. One way to figure out how much money you “should” have available for these things is to figure how much you’re “saving” since you downsized the home. Some of that newly available money could be needed for necessities you were unable to afford in the larger home, but most is probably being spent places where it doesn’t need to be. I am one of 5 kids so I remember how often we all “needed” things from my parents and I think now about how much we cost my parents!! Scary!! You can do it though!!! P.S. I’m not sure what your income is, but having 5 children will get you far on financial aid apps for things like Summer camp, preschool, and extracurriculars. Always apply!

Wow. It’s pretty interesting how in many industries the professionals often aren’t miles ahead of their clients (mechanics driving unreliable cars, chubby doctors, financial advisors in debt). So I wouldn’t put my energy beating myself up. I’d put it towards getting on track.

Treating yourself as a client is a great way to get a little more objective. Another issue is to explore whether there are relationship factors that contribute towards the disorganization. Is Hubby overwhelmed with all those kids and she is trying to go solo? That’s tough to do. But getting together with Hubby and a plan that makes it a two-person endeavor can help.

As for where the money goes, a budget is key. Also, a fun way to get a little extra money is to start a fun money bankroll where you sell things around the house to buy replacement things. Sell old toys to buy new ones. Old clothes to buy new. Things you are just storing to buy experiences. It’s a great way to downsize and have a few extra guilt free bucks to spend.

Curious about debts on cars? Is this a two car payment house? A financial advisor and basketball team of young kids screams brand new Honda Pilot and Grand Caravan. Maybe it’s time to pop one or both on craigslist and downsize those.

I’d certainly be more willing to downsize cars over house. Since house is already downsized maybe older cars could be next.

I remember once reading an article about whether you’d trust advice from a doctor who smokes :) I think it’s crazy they do, but I think it’s pretty easy to separate actions vs knowledge. All of us know what we SHOULD be doing when we’re not! It’s just hard as hell to follow through some times, haha…

I think the big key for her, and really anyone, is just to start putting one foot in front of the other. Whatever’s in the past is done and she isn’t going to fix all of it all at once. But maybe make a list of the things she’d like to do so that it isn’t just floating around in her head, and then find one thing she can do to make progress on one of them. Then find one more thing. Just keep making little steps and before long she’ll be far ahead of where she is today.

Getting on a budget will be huge, or perhaps going on a cash diet. In order to still make progress on the debt while contributing to 410K, I’d recommend automating the debt repayments- automatically sending a certain amount toward debt repayment every time she gets paid. The beauty of doing that right after you get paid is that then the money is gone right away and there is no temptation to spend it anywhere else.

I’d agree with the small steps approach so it’s not TOO much of a shock to the system to get back on the right track. Whichever she starts at first, I say make a goal out of it to reach a certain mark and use that as momentum to get the ball seriously rolling towards even more. And yes, call those credit cards and get them to knock off whatever they’re willing too as it all helps and gets more of your money accomplishing what you want with that debt.

Is she budgeting and spend tracking? We “lost” so much money through piddly stuff like $10 here and $20 there before we started budgeting and spend tracking. We “thought” we weren’t spending much on takeout, but when we added it up, it was over $200 a month! Best of luck to you, Mrs. reader. You can do it!

I agree with this advice Frugal. Couples who plan togeather, budget, and track spending will always find $$ to invest. Obviously some financial advisors say to pay off debt before investing. What matters is focusing on financial weaknesses and complete each goal, before moving on to the next goal.

Geez, I wonder what her retention rate is for her clients is the first thought that ran through my mind. Sure must be a challenge to sell a service, and provide advice if one does not have an individual financial oversight.
As a screening tool , the first question I ask a person selling a value added service is if they use it too or how they get paid. The author of J’s question would not make it onto my list of suppliers. Thank you for another example to make sure that I keep my guard up when it comes to my personal finance.

First things first, empathize with your clients and start with a 3% 401k deduction today, you won’t miss the net cash. Start tracking every penny spent using any of the wonderful tools provided here. After one month, you’ll see where the first painless cuts need to be made.

That reminds me of something my friend does when he’s hiring wealth managers. He asks to see THEIR accounts first and if they say yes (and it looks like they’re doing well) he signs up :) But he said 90% of the time they refuse, so perhaps they too aren’t taking their own advice? (Or it’s not good advice?)

It’s amazing how hard it is to go from knowing to doing. After putting and keeping on my freshman 15 (more like 25) throughout college I understood what I needed to do, but I didn’t actually do it. What helped me was two things- getting into a regular routine so exercise becomes habit (just like savings can be automated and tracking spending can become habit), and never tempting myself by having crap in my home, just not buying it (taking yourself out of situations where you know you have a tendency to splurge).

This is a perfect example of “Do as I say, not as I do.” It sounds like one of the main things she needs to do is to create a zero based budget with her husband and figure out where their money is going. Downsizing is a great idea, but not if they are spending that money they saved on the lower mortgage eating out every day. For my husband and myself, we spent one month keeping a check book register (with online banking and being younger this was different for us honestly) but keeping that helped us to realize how stupid we were being! If you’re not careful, you end up spending money on frivolous things that are truly a waste of money. For us, that was eating out/fast food, and Starbucks. Since we stopped spending as much money on those things, we are able to place that amount (almost $500/month ouch!) towards other much more practical things.

As a professional she should be able to do a calculation to figure out if her debts are a higher priority than saving. Considering that there’s free money available to her, it is a no-brainer to get that.

She shouldn’t worry about the sky-high market, when there is free money at stake. If she’s really that worried, emerging markets are down over the last year and flat over the last 4 years. It doesn’t appear to be sky-high to me.

First. Hubby. I respect anyone who makes a choice to be a homemaker. But, only for the right reasons. If you feel you don’t want a stranger raising your children, that’s fine. If its solely about money, there’s a long term view to take. Even if working is break even to the cost of childcare, the worker is earning social security credits, and building that retirement savings. If their employer offers matching 401k that’s part of the big picture as well. The biggest issue is that a five year gap in employment makes most people unemployable. A young man or woman needs to consider this before staying home (for monetary reasons).

As far as paying the debt, the first step is tracking. Get a notebook or spreadsheet, and track every cent for at least 3 months or longer. This will help to discover where you can cut back. Understand the difference between needs and wants. Remember, beer is a need, and if it has the work ‘lite’ on the label, it’s not beer.

Last – can hubby do any work from home? Any skills that work remotely for part time income?

I actually think that a lot of personal financial advisors live that way. I have a family member who works as an advisor who is in a considerable amount of debt and just keeps digging. He even leases an Infiniti to make it look like he’s more successful than he is.

Using a zero-sum budget will probably help solve all of your problems, by showing you exactly where your money is going.

Plan and budget first. Learn where your money is going. Sometime is hard to face the fact that a lifestyle change is in order and we are afraid to face it. You can do it. My fiance was a stay at home dad and he side hustle here and there to help pay down our debt. You can do it! Best of luck!

Given her profession, I’m relatively certain that she knows what to do, but does not do so. The problem with this is that her email focused on the financial things (which is the stuff she knows how to fix) instead of focusing on the motivation problem. Because we know so little about her, it’s hard for us to know what would motivate her. She downsized her home, which is awesome, but she still doesn’t know where the money goes. She needs a budget. Unfortunately, based upon this limited info, I don’t know what will motivate her to get said budget. Does she need an app? To communicate with her spouse? To consider how her actions now affect her childrens’ futures? I don’t know.

When my clients say they “don’t know where the money goes” I put them on the tracking system of writing everything down just like I had to write down everything I was eating when I was losing weight. It is a time consuming project, but one that will save them money. I imagine that with the hubby home with 5 kids, 4 of them under 6, A LOT gets lost in the shuffle of just day to day management of the family. She and her husband need to work together on tracking and then creating a budget based on what they observed from tracking. If they work as a team, they can get back on the right track.

There’s a big difference between knowing what to do, deciding what to do, and actually doing what you need to do.

My financial situation didn’t turn around for years, even though I knew what I had to do. It didn’t turn around when I decided what I needed to do. It turned around when I finally did what I needed to do.

I set up an emergency fund. I started paying off credit cards (and stopped using them). I prioritized expenditures and let go of things I thought I wanted or needed that didn’t support the plan. I stopped making excuses and started getting results.

It’s been difficult, and even painful. I’m down to one last bill, and I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Do I wish I’d started sooner? Absolutely! But I am so very glad I finally did start, and now that I’m almost finished, I wouldn’t trade the progress for anything in the world.

It’s great that she started off with downsizing. That would be off-limits for many people. I would suggest to take things slowly and make small changes over time. Start working on a budget. It doesn’t have to be super detailed that it takes you an hour to deal with. Just start tracking a few categories where you are probably overspending – groceries, eating out, personal care, etc. Work on knocking those expenses down. Also, you have to start investing. Yes the market is near an all-time high. But in 30 years when you need the money, the market is going to be much higher. Forget about where it is at today. You are focused on 30 years from now. The long-term trend of the market is up and I don’t see a reason why it would change now.

I want to address something YOU said, “It really is one of my favorite programs ever, and it sucks I can’t contribute myself now that I’m self-employed…”

Have you not heard of an Individual / Solo 401(k)? I have mine w/Vanguard and max this out every year. The combined contribution amount can’t be more than 100% of your pay, nor can it exceed $51,000 in 2013.

Oh, yeah, I should have been more clear on that. I meant I wish I could get some free money with MATCHES in 401ks :) I use a SEP Ira for my retirement tool replacement, but no one’s giving me money on top of it – at least that I’m aware of? Haha…

I was telling my wife my business idea of “loaning” money to people who do not contribute the max into 401Ks to get the company match. We would split the free money with them and get back the loaned amount plus or minus however much it went up or down. The problem is recouping the money that was loaned without having to wait for the person to hit retirement age and having a legal right my share of the company contributed amount.

I thought it was borderline brilliant, the wife… is reserving judgement.

Maybe you can just charge $100 to call their HR for them and/or get the paperwork filled out on their behalf which in turn gets them thousands of free dollars over their life time? (or, possibly even after just 1 year!).

Not as lucrative, but it’s much more do-able :) You just start the pitch with, “What if I told you I can make you thousands and thousands of dollars and all you have to do is give me $100?”

this brings to my remembrance the need to seek financial advice from those who have experienced it or are in the process of doing it.
thumbs up jmonwy for this post that shows us the need to follow the right people

Tough to say without a budget. I would start with that. Everyone assumes their spending is water-tight, but the little leakages add up.

I would guess there’s some savings to be had with the five kids. Maybe could be doing more in bulk… and there may be more benefits available that they’re not taking advantage of. Really tough to know without a budget though.

I am very humbled by all of your responses. I have been in my profession for over 15 years and currently have 80 million in assets under management. My clients are very important to me and I strive to do my due diligence going above and beyond daily. I now realize, although if I dig deep I already knew all of this, that my time management skills coupled with my lack of a budget has resulted in this snowball effect.
Rather than answer each comment with a reply, I decided to try and sum it all up in one comment.
We have 2 vans, one payment. ( both bought used )
We do not qualify for anything low income but have when we were younger and think those programs are great!!
We are not opposed to daycare, the issue is that the daycare cost more than what my husband brought home. Also, it makes it possible for me to travel when need be with one parent home.
My husband is now an independent distributor from home and also has the kids involved :)
It is not a challenge to sell a service that I know is right, btw my retention rate for 2013 was 93%. I do have a 401(k) and started it 12 years ago as well as 529 plans for my children and other investments. I am able to speak with a clear conscience about these things.
Unfortunately, I do not have any emerging markets funds available in my fund line up for my 401(k) but could buy a retail fund.
Thanks for all of your feedback. I appreciate ALL of your responses and ideas/suggestions.
Have a Blessed week!

Thanks for chiming in friend, and for also allowing me to post this up :) We all wish you luck in not only your personal finances, but also your business! A lot of us know what’s important to do even though we don’t do it – I totally agree you can give clear and smart advice regardless of whether you listen to it yourself or not. So keep going strong! And hopefully some of these tips help :)

My tip with decisions like this is to just do it, and tell yourself you can always change your mind later if you don’t like it. It’s rare that a decision can’t be reversed at a future date, so reminding myself of that option often helps remove the fear/procrastination from the equation.

We’re in the process of trying to pay off all our debt as well. But the first thing that I make sure I do is pay myself first! Like you said, I contribute to my company’s 401k (6%) because my company matches 75% up to the first 6%. That’s a lot of free money!!!!!

We temporarily stopped contributing to my wife’s 403b because they don’t match at all.

Using the debt snowball method and will start investing again once we pay off our student loan and car payment (approximately 2 years). 15% of both gross income PLUS maxing out BOTH Roth IRAs.

I need goals to keep me motivated. To do lists only work if I have deadlines and life changes only happen when I do it for something else. For example, I wanted to lose weight in 2011 because I wanted to look good at FinCon, so I gave myself 6 months to lose 30 pounds. We save because we want to save 3 million in retirement and stocks within the next 15 years. Goals you care about will push you.

The hardest part is sometimes just starting. You think you are so far deep into a problem that you can’t get out of it anytime soon. Just even starting a budget and watching where the money goes can get her and her family started on the right track. It can be the first snowflake that changes everything.

I love the honesty, but I have to say it reminds me of the adage “those who can’t do teacher.” I bet this post will be a great motivator for her and many others. My only kick in the pants is sheer motivation to achieve a certain lifestyle by a certain age. I inherently have an advantage by being debt free so I feel I can’t afford to waste the opportunity and need to capitalize on the money I’ve stashed away. My biggest regret was that I didn’t start investing when I was 20.

Kudos to that lady for letting it all hang out. I’d imagine she was worried about a great deal of criticism due to her occupation and the situation she finds herself in. But that’s not what the PF community is about, since just about everyone started their blog to help others. It really sounds like she knows what she has to do, and the next step is to do it. Just set up automatic transfers into the 401(k), bill pay, etc. In my opinion, and, well, in reality, if the money isn’t there you can’t spend it. With her husband providing care for the kids, she can focus on finding all of her essential expenses and then paring those down and begin the process of getting out of debt and growing her wealth. Best of luck to this woman, because she seems pretty rad for laying it all on the line.

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I, J. Money, only claim the thoughts from my head. I am not a banker, CPA, money manager or anything else of that sort. Please seek a professional for any "real" advice. More info: privacy & disclosure page